Chapter Ten
The weeks passed like the lazy clouds over Bray Castle.
Caroline’s stomach began to round and she spent each evening examining the new shape of her body before the looking glass.
She’d always possessed a pleasing figure and had been just vain enough to wonder what pregnancy would do to it, but she was discovering she quite liked the new fullness of her tender breasts and the gentle curve of her abdomen.
There were still several months until the baby would arrive, so she anticipated a great deal of change to come, but she was content with her current progress. She’d even felt the baby move.
The first incident occurred during supper one evening.
Gideon had been describing the book he’d been reading that day—something about political satire disguised as a description of pastoral life—and then she’d felt it.
At first, she thought she might have been imagining the whisper of a flutter, but then, when it happened a second time, she suspected something about the meal disagreed with her.
When Gideon laughed as he told his story, there was no mistaking the reaction inside her body.
Caroline had dropped her fork and clamped her hands over her abdomen, eyes wide with shock and joy. Gideon had immediately tossed down his utensils and knelt at her side. “What is it?” he’d asked with impressive calmness given the panic in his tight expression. “The baby? Are you in pain?”
“No,” she reassured him. “I—I felt it.”
“You…felt it?”
She’d nodded vigorously and, without hesitating, she took his hand and placed it right where she’d experienced the flutters.
It was the first time Gideon had held her stomach and felt the small curve of her body as it swelled to accommodate the life within.
His large palm nearly spanned the entire width as he cupped her protectively.
Another tiny flutter.
“There!” She practically bounced in her chair from excitement. Gideon frowned down at the place where his hand rested against her.
“I feel nothing.” The disappointment in his tone squeezed her heart uncomfortably.
She covered his hand with hers. “It is still early days; I am certain the movements will grow stronger and you will feel him soon.”
Gideon looked up at her from where he knelt on the floor.
The molten silver of his eyes was breathtaking; even through her layers of clothing, the heat of his hand on her was intoxicating.
Her skin ached to feel his once more. Her mouth watered with the desire to taste him once again, to feel his silken tongue dueling with hers.
They were so very close to one another. She had only to lean forward and they would be kissing.
Immediately, she grew wet between her thighs, the persistent hum of need slowly drowning out all her rational thoughts.
She’d had desires before, but nothing like what she’d been experiencing since the very beginning of her pregnancy.
Most nights and mornings, she awoke damp and needy, mewling in desire, wishing it were Gideon who pressed his fingers through her dripping folds and found that sensitive bud that set her every muscle on fire.
Her every sense flared with his nearness; the slight hitch in his breath as she involuntarily leaned forward made her press her thighs together. She didn’t know how much longer she could stand this tension—the simmering desire—between them.
And, when he pressed his lightly stubbled cheek to hers, she nearly combusted.
“D’you think…” he asked slightly unsteadily before trying again.
“D’you think we might one day revisit what transpired between us after the Haverford ball?
” Caroline couldn’t prevent her little shudder of pleasure when the tip of his nose grazed the sensitive lobe of her ear.
Her cheeks warmed with a combination of need and nerves.
“Perhaps…” she said on a tight exhalation, the power of her own desire making it difficult for her to breathe, let alone speak.
“Good.” Gideon rocked back on his heels and stood. “Please excuse me.”
He turned quickly and beat a hasty retreat from the room, but there was no masking the thick, prominent ridge of his arousal as it strained against the falls of his breeches.
“Oh my…” Caroline shivered and began to fan her face. She didn’t know how much longer she could stand this.
The baby fluttered once more within her womb.
Gideon woke at dawn the next morning, dressed quickly and silently, ignored the painful hardness and heat in his groin, and stormed out of the castle to the mews.
As instructed, his chestnut gelding had been prepared and danced on anxious feet as Gideon approached.
His large, dark eyes wide, nostrils flared, muscles trembling in anticipation, it appeared they could both use a long, hard ride to start their day.
Offering a quick nod in acknowledgment to the groom, Gideon swung up into the saddle in one fluid movement.
They were off like a cannon.
Gideon gave himself over to the beast’s thundering hooves, the heaving of his broad back beneath him as they flew across fields, down dusty paths, and skirted the village.
The air grew saltier as they neared the coast. The wind stung his face and whipped the air from his lungs, but it felt glorious.
It had been too long since he’d ridden like this—so hard and far that the rest of the world fell away.
Everything around them was reduced to blurs of color and physical sensations.
He allowed his mount to choose their direction and speed, giving him his head as they both worked off their pent-up energy, enjoying the strain upon their muscles.
It wasn’t precisely the release he ached for, but it would have to do.
For now.
Caroline had given him hope at supper the evening before, and he’d bottled it and clung to it like a superstitious man would a talisman.
Everything about Caroline drove him nearly insensible with need.
Her smile suffused him with warmth; her laughter buoyed his soul; the way she cared for him brought comfort to his soul, the likes of which he’d never known before she came into his life.
She was his, according to the letter of the law, but he was brimming with the desire to possess every part of her.
He wanted her to ache for him as he did her.
He wanted to know she, too, counted the minutes until they were once again in the same room.
He wanted her body to burn for him with the same flame he experienced every time he looked at her or heard the melody of her voice.
And the hope she’d given him brought him one step closer to that.
The golden light of morning was in full force by the time they slowed to overlook the white chalk cliffs and the crashing waves far below. Gideon dismounted and rubbed the white splotches on the horse’s velvety nose.
“Good boy,” he praised, both of them catching their breath.
Holding the reins in one hand, they walked along the cliff.
Gideon tilted his head toward the wheeling seabirds, their screeching calls ripped away on the wind.
He raked his damp hair back from his face, but it was an exercise in futility with the sea breeze.
It plastered his linen shirt to his sweat-slicked chest, chilling his overheated skin and causing gooseflesh to rise over every inch of his body.
The heat deep within him refused to be quelled, however.
It haunted him when he tried to sleep.
It plagued him when he attempted to distract himself with other tasks.
Each time he thought it was beginning to cool, Caro would walk into the room and it would roar to life once more.
It was Caroline.
She was the catalyst of all that was slowly driving him mad with need.
She filled his eyes, his lungs, his blood. Even when he left the grounds on his punishing rides, he could not fully escape her. His damned gelding was named Posy because of her.
“Don’t the white markings on his nose look like flower petals? He looks as if he were sniffing a posy and some of them became stuck.”
He could still hear Caro’s words and her joyful laughter as he collected the animal from Tattersalls five years prior.
Even though the yearling had had a much more regal, official title, the name had stuck.
Gideon could only call him Posy. It was engraved on his tack and above his stall.
He came to that name when called. There was simply no escaping Caro for either of them.
“Bloody hell…” Gideon groaned as they ambled along. Though his embarrassingly persistent erection had flagged, the ride had done little to clear his head.
Her words at supper ran through his head again and again.
She’d left the possibility open to their being more between them, and it was at once his greatest relief and fear.
He ached to possess her again; something primal had been unleashed within him when she’d felt his child—their child—move in her womb.
It suddenly felt more real. And he wanted to claim her all over again because of it.
She wore his ring, she had his name, she carried his babe, and now he wanted her in his bed. For good.
He was beginning to admit to himself that he was allowed to want Caro, allowed to desire a family, the likes of which he’d never known.
With the volatility of his upbringing and the poor examples his parents had provided, Gideon had always felt somewhat inadequate and untutored when it came to relationships beyond the carnal.
How could he ever hope to be sufficient when he had no training?
No one after whom he might model his behavior?
These first few weeks of marriage had taught him one thing: He could make up for a great many shortcomings if he just continued to adore and care for Caroline as he always had.